My WIP’s Fourth Revision

Reshaping Character Arcs (2)

My Beta Readers didn’t like how she changed when her world fell apart. She is Native, thrust into a Colonial world to save her people. When her world fell apart, she grew more emotional and ineffective as she dealt with grief and stress. And readers thought she should become more Native, embracing her heritage values and letting go of her adopted values. And…now she does.

My WIP’s Fourth Revision

Reshaping Character Arcs (1)

I put in a lot of work on my character arcs. And they came out pretty much the way I wanted them to. But Beta Readers insisted I make changes.

They thought I could merge one of my important character into another. My character, a woman, became, effectively, the nanny for my MC’s son. She didn’t get a lot of face time and existed, in part, to sacrifice herself to save the MC. Readers pointed out that my MC, a Native, would be more likely to trust another character, my MC’s sister, with her son. And…they are right.

My villain / love interest came off as too old and rigid. Readers couldn’t see why she is so attracted to him. As one said, if he is going to make her act all stupid he needs to exude more animal magnetism than I wrote him with. My readers are, once again, right. Continue reading →

My WIP’s Fourth Revision

Fight and Battle Scenes (3)

There goes the plan for posting several times a week and building my blog up to a likership of millions. Ha.

What was I trying to do?

My betas hated my fight and battle scenes. That hurt. I don’t want to just be a writer. I want to be a good writer, who tells compelling stories. And I weep at the thought that, if readers stick with me, they will skim over any of my scenes.

What did I do?

I rewrote all my fight and action scenes, paying a lot of attention to the build-up, the setting, who was doing what, and made the knife fight, the sword fight, and the duel with pistols as realistic as I could…even though I’ve never tried to cut anyone with a knife, hack someone with a sword, or shoot someone.Continue reading →